Garlits' Museum Is Where You Really Find Horsepower

March 30, 1986|By Joe Williams of The Sentinel Staff

OCALA — In the middle of this land where horses are treated as royalty, the king of drag racing has set up shop.

''Big Daddy'' Don Garlits has called Ocala his home since 1983. He has built and operates the Don Garlits Drag Racing Museum there. It's right on the intersection of Interstate-75 and County Road 484 at Exit 67. Horse farms surround his place.

A horse's hoofs clippity-clapping on a training track slightly more than a hundred yards from the museum almost can be heard in his museum.

But the horsepower Garlits craves is mechanically generated. It's created in the garage, adjacent to the museum. Garlits builds and maintains his own Top Fuel dragsters there. It's in this garage that Garlits built the dragster he used last Sunday to go 272.56 mph -- faster than anyone in the history of the sport -- at the Gatornationals in Gainesville.

Although Garlits' speed is a track record it does not qualify as a national mark because he could not come within one percent of repeating it in the finals. Garlits needed a 269.84 to confirm the record, but recorded a 268.65 in the finals while beating Dick LaHale for the title.

The official record of 269.46 is still held by Joe Amato.Garlits broke the 272 mph mark while beating former NFL quarterback Dan Pastorini, who has been racing dragsters since retiring from football two years ago.

Garlits, 54, said his interest in drag racing goes back to his high school days in Tampa. His first drag race was in June 1950 in Zephyrhills. Since that time Garlits' name has become synonymous with drag racing. He has won over $4 million.

''I really got started when a general metals teacher brought a hot rod magazine to school one day,'' Garlits said. ''I had just gotten my first car a Ford Coupe. There were a lot of kids who would hot rod around the streets and that interested me. But the police didn't really like it.

''After school, we formed a hot rod club. We eventually went to the city fathers in Zephyrhills and got to hold some drag races there. There were 18 of us at that first race.''

As could be expected, the sport of drag racing has grown by leaps and bounds in the past 36 years. Largely because of the contributions and experimental work done by Garlits.

''I think the greatest accomplishment I've made to the sport was making the rear engine car,'' Garlits said. ''It has saved so many lives.''

Garlits twice learned first-hand the dangers of a front-engined car.

The most horrifying time occurred in Long Beach, Calif., on March 8, 1970 when the transmission exploded in his ''Slingshot'' dragster and broke the car in two. Garlits lost half his right foot.

He was burned seriously in June 1950 when the blower exploded.

A pioneer in the world of speed, the 20-foot car he drives now is powered by a 2,700-horsepower Dodge engine, which delivers a 3G thrust, which pins Garlits against his seat until he crosses the finish line and pulls the parachute's rip cord to slow down.

''The Lord gives me the ideas,'' said Garlits, who has a cross with the words ''God is Love'' on the nose of all his dragsters.

Attendance at the Don Garlits Museum of Drag Racing is at high these days. Just three days after going faster than anyone else in the sport of drag racing, people were steadily coming into the building last Wednesday

''It's one of a kind,'' said Rodney DeSantis of Erie, Pa. ''We are into street rods so we decided to drop in and see what this place was all about. It's well worth it.''

''It's just so impressive to see the different designs of the cars over the years,'' said Carol DeSantis, Rodney's wife.

''We came by here about two years ago and it was closed,'' said Tim Plotts, 22, of McClure, Ohio. ''We wanted to come back. The speed is what attracted me. I helped build a stock car when I was in college, but there isn't much in these cars I recognize, except the Chevy engine.''

Howard Harman, 71, of McClure, Ohio, came to look at the antique cars, which are also on display.

''I can remember when these older cars all came out new,'' said Harman, who winters in Tavares. ''I think the restoration work that has been done on the cars is wonderful.''

Garlits, who sometimes comes into the exhibition hall to meet the visitors, said the busiest time of the year is in the late fall and early spring. The week of the Gatornationals is the busiest, but there is also a healthy business in February during Speed Weeks in Daytona.

Garlits got the idea for the museum in 1976 when he and his wife, Pat, were in England for races and used some time off to tour some of the auto museums there.

When the Garlitses returned, they opened the museum in Seffner. But they found the location was too far ''off the beaten path.'' So he looked for a new location. First he checked sites around Brooksville but decided to go north to Ocala to catch the tourists before they took Florida's Turnpike to Disney World.

Along with several of Garlits' cars, the museum features other dragsters, including the one driven by Shirley Muldowney and used in the movie Heart Like a Wheel. It also has the first ''rail'' dragster, built and driven by Dick Kraft. The car, called ''The Bug,'' raced from 1941-45.

''We are putting cars together all the time,'' said Garlits, whose hobby is restoring vintage automobiles. ''We have several in restoration right now.''